Sex: It’s All About the Face

For me, this was one of those, “Man, I wish I’d thought of that first!” moments.

A lot of us are often looking for realism in our porn. Our fantasies work better when they’re grounded in a more believable scenario. That’s what brought success to gonzo porn and amateur sites, the fact they could create a situation where bad acting skills and a cheap budget won’t ruin the credibility of the scene for our brains.

I’m an avid porn watcher – more so now that I write about it for BaDoink – and one of my biggest criticisms of the whole industry is the obsession with genital close-ups that take way longer than they should, while often neglecting facial expressions.

Some of the hottest and most realistic images of a sexual experience happen in those rare candid moments when we witness another person’s honest facial expressions. So, what if there was a site that focused only on that?

Beautiful Agony started as a multimedia project developed in 2003 by a group of Australian friends, based on the hypothesis that eroticism in human imagery rests not in naked flesh and sexual illustration, but engagement with the face. A few more curious friends who connected with their theory made a handful of videos that showcased unscripted, genuine orgasms while masturbating. The experiment worked, and soon after they started accepting more and more submissions, paying their contributors and charging for subscriptions.

While you’ll hardly see any real nudity, there’s more intimacy than you’re likely to find anywhere else. Mostly you’ll see women and men masturbating on their own, but there are also plenty of videos of couples and even groups of people together. It’s a simple and brilliant idea that captures very intense human moments.

On top of the actual orgasms, they also offer confessions, where contributors are asked to bare their souls about what they find hot.

There are at least five new videos uploaded every week, with orgasms and confessions from all over the world, and there are thousands more in their database.

For more information, you can go to their website and subscribe for US$8 a month, with unlimited access to all the videos you want. Additionally, if you’d like a more in-depth experience, you can submit your own clips and earn US$200 for filming something that – let’s face it – you were going to do anyway, while also being part of something really cool.